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127 SUN TZU; GILES, Lionel (trans.) & Samuel B. Griffith (provenance). Sun Tzu on the Art of War. London: Luzac & Co., Printed by E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1910 the first full translation of sun tzu into a european language, samuel b. griffith’s working copy First edition, first impression, of the first full translation directly from the Chinese into a European language of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War , the defining handbook for military leaders. This copy has a perhaps unsurpassable provenance, being the working copy of Samuel B. Griffith, the only other person to attempt a scholarly English translation in the 20th century. It is difficult to overstate the significance of The Art of War on military leadership in both the east and the west, and on shaping warfare from ancient China through to modern conflicts. The manual remains equally useful to both the guerrilla fighter and the superpower leader. At the time of publication, the translator Lionel Giles (1875–1958) was assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum and one of Europe’s leading sinologists. There had been two previous attempts at putting Sun Tzu into a modern European language: the 1782 French version by the Jesuit Jean Joseph-Marie Amiot, which was based on a Manchu paraphrase, and the 1905 English translation (rev. 1908) of a Japanese version published by Lt.-Col. Everard Ferguson Calthrop, a language officer in the British army. There is no question that Giles’s was the first genuine attempt at a full European translation from the original, undertaken by a scholar equipped for the difficulties of the work, the result being a model of fluency and interpretative accuracy. It continues to be reprinted up to the present day, and
remains in John Minford’s recent estimation “a model study, scholarly but at the same time alive both to enduring humanistic concerns and to concrete present-day issues”. Giles’s interpretation went unchallenged for over a half a century until the efforts of Samuel B. Griffith (1906–1983). In 1953, Griffith retired after more than 25 years of active military service (including in China) and entered New College, Oxford to study for a doctorate in Chinese military history, submitting his annotated translation of Sun Tzu for his degree in 1960. The present copy evidently formed part of his study library, with his bookplate on the front free endpaper (with inked Oxford purchase date), together with a scatter of his pencil marks and comments to the text. Though well-represented institutionally, the book is genuinely scarce on the market. Octavo (243 × 154 mm). Mid-20th-century moderate red buckram, spine lettered longitudinally in gilt, original printed card wrappers bound in. Housed in custom black quarter morocco solander box. Somewhat rubbed, spine sunned, damp mark to back board with consequent tidemark to rear pastedown, foxing to free endpapers and original wrappers, variable toning of text-block, but overall a very good copy. £7,500 [135534] 128 TAYLOR, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911 the most popular business book of the first half of the century First edition, printed for private distribution, of the core text of what is popularly known as “Taylorism” – the management of workers on an entirely rationalized, scientific basis. Though long
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